The swimming bag hit the car floor with a thump and my son hit the car seat with an even bigger thump, grumbling: "What's the point?" His primary school had just lost a swimming competition, largely because their head teacher had picked a team on the basis of enthusiasm rather than ability. To paraphrase that old cliche, it wasn't the winning that mattered, it was the taking part. Well, I'm sorry, but in the real world life is full of winners and losers. And right now, the losers are a generation of boys who have been betrayed by an education system that no longer recognises crucial differences between the sexes. ... http://www.dailymail.co.uk

The release on Friday of portions of a bleak new National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq’s future left the White House and its opponents vying over whether its findings buttressed their vastly different views about how to arrest the worsening sectarian chaos there. The assessment, by American intelligence agencies, expressed deep doubts about the abilities of Iraqi politicians to hold together an increasingly balkanized country, and about whether Iraqi troops might be able to confront powerful militias over the next 18 months and assume more responsibility for security. The analysis, the first such estimate on Iraq in more than two years, described in sober language a rapidly unraveling country in which security has worsened despite four years of efforts by the administration. President Bush acknowledged last month that his strategy had failed so far....http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/world/middleeast/03intel.html?ei=5094&en=9815cf3f29e620dc&hp=&ex=1170565200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

At Lake Eola park, there is much beauty to behold: robust palms, beds of cheery begonias, a cascading lake fountain, clusters of friendly egrets and swans, an amphitheater named in honor of Walt Disney. Then there are the signs. DO NOT LIE OR OTHERWISE BE IN A HORIZONTAL POSITION ON A PARK BENCH … DO NOT SLEEP OR REMAIN IN ANY BUSHES, SHRUBS OR FOLIAGE … per city code sec. 18A.09 (a) and (o). Visit the park's restrooms, and you'll find this sign on the wall above the hand dryers: BATHING AND/OR SHAVING IN RESTROOM IS PROHIBITED … per city code 18A.09 (p) … LAUNDERING CLOTHES IN LAKE EOLA PARK IS NOT PERMITTED. Since joggers and dog walkers tend not to snooze in flower beds, and because employees at the glittering office towers around Lake Eola don't scrub laundry in park sinks, it's clear, says Monique Vargas, at whom the notices are targeted. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2847022

In the year that Peru is trying to get Machu Picchu voted one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, there are growing tensions over the country's greatest tourist attraction. A former mayor has built a bridge which creates a new route to the World Heritage site, threatening to bring more tourists and, some say, open up a new route for drug traffickers. The 80-metre long Carilluchayoc bridge, which crosses the Vilcanota river near the base of the 15th-Century Inca citadel, is to be inaugurated in February, despite a court order prohibiting its construction and protests from the government and environmentalists. There is concern that - with around 2,500 visitors a day - there are already too many tourists tramping around the ruins. The UN's cultural division, Unesco, is due to inspect the site this year to decide whether it should be classed as an endangered heritage site. But the former mayor of La Convencion province, Fedia Castro, whose term ended recently, says ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6292327.stm

Oil and natural gas deposits possibly worth $400 billion are raising tension in the eastern Mediterranean with Turkey threatening to block exploration that does not include Turkish and Turkish-Cypriot interests. Banner headlines in the Greek-Cypriot press yesterday reported unexpected movement of Turkish warships along the southern coast of Cyprus and blamed Turkey for "muscle flexing" in connection with the oil and gas exploration plans. Turkish television channel NTV said the warships had been sent as a warning that Ankara "would safeguard its rights in the area." Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, chief of Turkey's General Staff, said the movement was a routine patrol in the Mediterranean. "There was no need to send new warships," the Turkish press quoted him as saying. The Greek-Cypriot government recently signed an agreement with Lebanon and Egypt for joint exploration in an area 125 miles wide between Cyprus and the Mediterranean's southern coast...http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20070202-100150-5190r.htm

Three people were killed when a small plane crashed in a wooded area near New Bedford Regional Airport on Friday night, the Federal Aviation Administration said.The plane crashed at 7:45 p.m. about 1.5 miles west of the airport in the woods. It was cleared for landing at the airport.“At some point as the aircraft was on final approach, we lost communication with it,” FAA spokesman Jim Peters said.The turboprop Socata plane is owned by PK Leasing of Allentown, Pa., Peters said. It wasn’t immediately known where the plane took off, he said....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16953305/